DOCSLIB.ORG

Japan and the Jews of Manchuria Beginning in 19311

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Japan and the Jews of Manchuria Beginning in 19311 Chapter 6 Japan and the Jews of Manchuria Beginning in 19311 As we discussed briefly above, the first contact between Japan and a rel- atively large Jewish population took place during the Japanese Siberian Intervention, from 1918 to 1922. That operation was designed to help White Russian forces defeat the Bolsheviks and destroy the newly established Communist regime in that country. At the time, some 25,000 Jews living in a number of cities in East Siberia found themselves between the hammer and the anvil following the Bolshevik Revolution. On the one hand they were hounded by the newly established Far East Republic which was soon replaced by the Communist regime, which charged them with anti-Bolshevik tendencies, and on the other they were charged by the White Russians, the enemies of the Reds, of being loyal communists who supported the new regime in the Soviet Union and were busy spreading communist ideology in East Asia. After the Japanese troops returned home from Siberia in 1922 and the communist regime stabilized itself in Siberia, the fate of the Jews in that part of Russia was akin to that elsewhere in the Soviet Union: they were tolerated by the new regime, but their religion, language, and school system were proscribed. Zionism was outlawed, and emigration from the Soviet Union became highly restricted. Of the 25,000 Jews in Siberia, several thousand fled south across the Manchurian border. This area, formally under Chinese sovereignty, had been increasingly under Russian influence since the beginning of the twentieth century. Even before the Russo-Japanese War the Jews there had enjoyed a special status under the Tsarist regime, which had encouraged them to settle in cities like Harbin, Mukden, and Dairen to cement the Russian presence in Manchuria. By 1900 approximately 45 Jews lived in Harbin. The community grew to 300 only two years later, and in 1915 the number of Jews residing in Harbin was estimated at 12,000 souls. They made their living in trade, ser- vices, and exports and imports, with a few working in industry or the hotel 50 UNDER THE SHADOW OF THE RISING SUN business. The community was well-organized and maintained synagogues, schools, and health, welfare, and charitable institutions. Community mem- bers spoke mainly Russian. Among them were the Olmert family, including the grandfather and father of Ehud Olmert (1945-), who would eventually become prime minister of Israel. After the October 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, the legal status of the Jews of Harbin became problematic. Some were now Soviet nationals, but the majority of them were in effect stateless and thus under the protection of the local Chinese warlord Chang Tso Lin (1876-1928). In the absence of a strong central government, they had few defenses from their virulent enemies the White Russians, who like the Jews were exiles from the Soviet Union. The White Russians embarked on a systematic campaign to turn the Japanese government and officers belonging to the Kwantung Army head- quarters in Manchuria against the Jews. The Kwantung Army was responsi- ble for the security of the Japanese enclave in the Liaotung Peninsula, whose major cities were Port Arthur and Dairen. On the eve of the Japanese occu- pation in 1931, a White Russian fascist party was established in Harbin. The Japanese army wanted above all to ensure stability and social order in Manchuria. Intercommunal tensions were highly undesirable for them. After the Occupation of Manchuria by Japan After Japan’s occupation of Manchuria in late 1931 and early 1932 and the establishment of the puppet state of Manchukuo, the Jews of Manchuria found themselves under direct Japanese rule. Since many lacked any nationality, and those of Russian origins were formally Stateless Russian Emigrants, they were at the mercy of the Japanese army, the true masters of Manchukuo. They sought the protection of the Japanese army mainly from the White Russian émigrés, who never tired of accusing them of various crimes, including maintaining contact with the enemies of Japan and disloyalty to the new puppet regime of Manchukuo. When the Soviet Union sold its holdings in the Southern Manchurian Railway to Japan in 1935, the Russian government no longer felt any obligation to protect the Jews of Soviet nationality, resulting in the departure of almost half of the Jewish community from Harbin, Mukden, and other towns. The number of Jews in Manchuria dwindled to less than 6,000. Many of the emigrants went south to Shanghai, a few traveled to the United States, and some even Japan and the Jews of Manchuria Beginning in 1931 51 immigrated to Palestine. At this stage, however, the economic position of some of the wealthy Jews remained intact. Among the wealthy families were the Zykman, Skidelsky, and Kavalkin families. The Jewish leadership understood very early that in order to survive it would have to collaborate with the puppet regime of Manchukuo, and that this meant it would truly be collaborating with the headquarters of the Kwantung Army. The com- mander of that force became Japan’s ambassador to Manchukuo, and was thus the de-facto ruler of that country, which by 1937 was recognized only by Japan, Germany, Italy and El Salvador. Among the officers who served in the Japanese supreme command, and mainly among that group that became known as the “Manchuria Faction,” a number of ideas were discussed regarding how to exploit the Manchurian Jews to help Japan gain recognition of the Manchukuo puppet state by additional countries and above all how to obtain foreign economic aid for the development of Manchuria’s industry. Among those who sup- ported this line of thought were Colonels Itagaki Seishiro (1885-1948) and Ishihara Kanji (1889-1949). Quite early in the occupation, it dawned on the Japanese leadership that the hopes they had pinned on the quality of Manchurian coal and steel were highly exaggerated.2 In order to develop these two key resources, vast sums of money would be required, and some officers thought that it would be possible to mobilize international Jewry to raise the necessary funds. The minimal amount required was estimated at between two to three bil- lion dollars, an astronomical sum and even more so for those times. Those Japanese officers and civilian bureaucrats who supported the idea hoped that wealthy Jews, mainly in the United States, would invest in Manchuria. Hence, it was imperative not to harm the Jews in Manchuria in any way. Once again, Japan’s ignorance and total lack of understanding of world Jewry was evident. Even the few officers who were considered Jewish experts failed to realize that while Jews were wealthy in certain countries, their political clout even in the United States was almost non-existent. They were even unable to change America’s drastic immigration laws to allow tens of thousands of German and Austrian Jewish refugees to find haven in the United States. In the midst of the Great Depression, there was no chance that any wealthy Jew would invest in the development of Manchuria’s industries, let alone promote an aggressive Japanese policy in East Asia. The idea of using the power of rich Jews was not new; it had initially been discussed by a number of Japanese foreign ministry officials in 1921. Now it surfaced again. At this time the officers discussing the situation 52 UNDER THE SHADOW OF THE RISING SUN basically thought that it would be beneficial for Japan to establish good working relations with the Jewish community in Manchuria, and allay their fears that the Japanese might support White Russian hooliganism and even antisemitic outbursts in that country. They feared that anti-Jewish inci- dents, if mentioned in the American media, would create an unpleasant image for Japan at the very time that it wanted to demonstrate the benev- olent nature of its rule in Manchuria. The local Jewish leadership under Dr. Abraham Kaufman (1885-1971) recognized the need to collaborate with the Japanese authorities in order to ensure the survival of the slowly diminishing Jewish communities of Harbin, Mukden, and Dairen. For their part, the Japanese authorities adopted a “divide and rule” policy regarding the Jews and the White Russians. They did not ban the Russian fascist party, but they did restrict its activities. On a number of occasions they used White Russians as special police officers to spy on the Chinese, Koreans, and Jews. The Japanese authorities also permitted the publication of a fascist Russian publication Nash Pot (“Our Way”), which called for killing the Jews. During the 1930’s and early 1940’s, the main enemies of the Manchurian Jewish communities continued to be the White Russians. This dire situa- tion meant that the Jews had to rely on the Japanese authorities to protect them from the Russian ultra-nationalists. This suited the Japanese rulers of Manchuria well, and to counterbalance the Russians, they now encouraged Zionist bodies such as the Beitar Youth Movement. The Fugu Plan At the same time as Japan was considering the benefits of seeking Jewish capital, the President of the Southern Manchurian Railway Matsuoka Yosuke (1886-1946) and the Chairman of the Manchurian Heavy Industries Association Oikawa Yoshisuke (1880-1967) toyed with the idea of settling some fifty thousand European Jews in Manchukuo. They would, it was believed, bring with them not only capital but also technological know- how and managerial skills. The idea was developed in an article written by Oikawa in 1934 called “A Plan to Settle Fifty Thousand German Jews in Manchukuo.” The underlying assumption was that the Jews Germany wanted to get rid of would be seeking a refuge wherever they could settle and invest their capital.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • War Crimes in the Philippines During WWII Cecilia Gaerlan
    War Crimes in the Philippines during WWII Cecilia Gaerlan When one talks about war crimes in the Pacific, the Rape of Nanking instantly comes to mind.Although Japan signed the 1929 Geneva Convention on the Treatment of Prisoners of War, it did not ratify it, partly due to the political turmoil going on in Japan during that time period.1 The massacre of prisoners-of-war and civilians took place all over countries occupied by the Imperial Japanese Army long before the outbreak of WWII using the same methodology of terror and bestiality. The war crimes during WWII in the Philippines described in this paper include those that occurred during the administration of General Masaharu Homma (December 22, 1941, to August 1942) and General Tomoyuki Yamashita (October 8, 1944, to September 3, 1945). Both commanders were executed in the Philippines in 1946. Origins of Methodology After the inauguration of the state of Manchukuo (Manchuria) on March 9, 1932, steps were made to counter the resistance by the Chinese Volunteer Armies that were active in areas around Mukden, Haisheng, and Yingkow.2 After fighting broke in Mukden on August 8, 1932, Imperial Japanese Army Vice Minister of War General Kumiaki Koiso (later convicted as a war criminal) was appointed Chief of Staff of the Kwantung Army (previously Chief of Military Affairs Bureau from January 8, 1930, to February 29, 1932).3 Shortly thereafter, General Koiso issued a directive on the treatment of Chinese troops as well as inhabitants of cities and towns in retaliation for actual or supposed aid rendered to Chinese troops.4 This directive came under the plan for the economic “Co-existence and co-prosperity” of Japan and Manchukuo.5 The two countries would form one economic bloc.
    [Show full text]
  • The Manchurian Incident
    Part 1 - The Manchurian Incident Chronology 1911 October 10 - Xinhai Revolution 1922 February 6 - Nine-Powers Treaty (Washington Naval Conference) 1931 September 18 - Manchurian Incident 1932 March 1 - Manchukuo is founded September 4 - Lytton Report is released 1933 March 27 - Japan withdraws from the League of Nations (effective 1935 March 27) May 31 - Tanggu Truce 1935 June 10 - He-Umezu Agreement 1936 December 12 - Xian Incident 1937 July 7 - Marco Polo Bridge Incident July 11 - Local ceasefire agreement July 29 - Tongzhou Massacre August 9 - Murder of Sublieutenant Oyama August 13 - Battle of Shanghai August 15 - Chiang Kai-shek issues general mobilization order August 21 - Sino-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact October 2 - Landing of Japan's 10th Army at Hangzhou Bay leads to the collapse of the Chinese Army in Shanghai November 5 - Japan makes peace offer through German Ambassador to China Oskar Trautmann December 1 - Order to capture Nanking is issued December 13 - Fall of Nanking, the Japanese Army enters Nanking December 22 - Japan reissues its peace terms through Trautmann 1938 January 16 - First Konoe Statement cuts ties with Chiang Kai- shek's regime November 3 - Second Konoe Statement declares a new order in Asia December 22 - Third Konoe Statement enunciates the principles of friendly relations with neighbors, anti-communism, and economic cooperation 1940 March 30 - Establishment of the Republic of China in Nanking 1943 November 5-6 - Greater East Asia Conference is convened in Tokyo 1 How did 10,400 Japanese soldiers occupy Manchuria? On September 18, 1931, a line of the South Manchuria Railway at Liutiaogou, about eight kilometers north of the city of Mukden, was blown apart.
    [Show full text]
  • The Changkufeng and Nomonhan Incidents – the Undeclared Border War and Its Impact on World War Ii
    University of Texas at El Paso DigitalCommons@UTEP Open Access Theses & Dissertations 2014-01-01 The hC angkufeng And Nomonhan Incidents - The Undeclared Border War And Its Impact on World War II Tobias Block University of Texas at El Paso, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.utep.edu/open_etd Part of the Asian History Commons, Asian Studies Commons, Military History Commons, Slavic Languages and Societies Commons, and the Soviet and Post-Soviet Studies Commons Recommended Citation Block, Tobias, "The hC angkufeng And Nomonhan Incidents - The ndeU clared Border War And Its Impact on World War II" (2014). Open Access Theses & Dissertations. 1588. https://digitalcommons.utep.edu/open_etd/1588 This is brought to you for free and open access by DigitalCommons@UTEP. It has been accepted for inclusion in Open Access Theses & Dissertations by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@UTEP. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE CHANGKUFENG AND NOMONHAN INCIDENTS – THE UNDECLARED BORDER WAR AND ITS IMPACT ON WORLD WAR II TOBIAS BLOCK DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY APPROVED: __________________________________________ Joshua Fan, Ph.D., Chair __________________________________________ Paul Edison, Ph.D. __________________________________________ Jose Villalobos, Ph.D. __________________________________ Bess Sirmon-Taylor, Ph.D. Interim Dean of the Graduate School THE CHANGKUFENG AND NOMONHAN INCIDENTS - THE UNDECLARED BORDER WAR AND ITS IMPACT ON WORLD WAR II by Tobias Block, BA Thesis Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at El Paso in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS Department Of HISTORY THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS OF EL PASO May 2014 Table of Contents Table of Contents…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
    [Show full text]
  • Legacy of the Pacific War: 75 Years Later August 2020
    LEGACY OF THE PACIFIC WAR: 75 YEARS LATER August 2020 Trauma and Triumph: U.S.-China Relations and Memories of the War in the Pacific By Robert Daly or China, the War in the Pacific, like World Unless they are speaking of specific events, like War II itself, has never been an important the Annexation of Manchukuo, the Battle for framework for interpreting events between Shanghai, the Rape of Nanking, or Pearl Harbor, 1941 and 1945. There is a phrase in Mandarin that Westerners and Chinese discussing the war often Fnods to the West’s historiography of the period—第 find few points of overlap in their war narratives. 二次世界大战 (二战), or “the second time the world Few Americans who are not specialists in the went to war”—but it is rarely used in Chinese China-Burma-India Theater have ever heard of Wang conversation. Chinese speak instead of 抗日战 Jingwei, who collaborated with Japan in running 争, or the War Against Japan, which for China ran a Chinese puppet government in Nanjing, or the from 1937—or 1931 in some tellings—until China’s Ichigo Offensive, Japan’s last major campaignAsia victory in 1945. on Chinese soil. In China, to this day, thereP isr noo gram Asia Program popular term for the Holocaust. Chinese know the war. Representatives from over fifty countries about Hitler’s death camps, of course, but there is and several international organizations attended. no one word in Chinese for the most searing 20th What they were asked to celebrate, however, was century event in the Western Hemisphere.
    [Show full text]
  • The Suiyuan Incident
    file:///H:/AAA Temporary Folder/tweaket.com.htm MURDOCH RESEARCH REPOSITORY http://researchrepository.murdoch.edu.au This is the author's final version of the work, as accepted for publication following peer review but without the publisher's layout or pagination. Boyd, J.G. (2012) In Search of Shambhala? Nicholas Roerich's 1934-5 Inner Mongolian Expedition. Inner Asia, 14 (2). pp. 257-277. http://researchrepository.murdoch.edu.au/13457 Copyright © Brill It is posted here for your personal use. No further distribution is permitted. 1 of 1 11/03/2013 2:06 PM In Search of Shambhala?: Nicholas Roerich’s 1934-5 Inner Mongolian Expedition James Boyd Asia Research Centre, Murdoch University, Abstract During the 1920s and 1930s Western visitors to Inner Mongolia came for a variety of reasons. Some came for the purpose of scholarship, others passed through on their way to visit the new ‘independent’ nation of Manchukuo, often at the invitation of the Japanese authorities. Among these visitors was Nicholas Roerich, the purpose of whose visit is still the subject of debate. Roerich’s journey through Inner Mongolia has attracted some scholarly attention, but there are still many unanswered questions about what it was that Roerich actually did while he was there or hoped to achieve. This article draws on earlier studies, but analyses the available reports from US State Department in China together with contemporary news reports, to place Roerich’s journey within the geopolitical context of the time. Key Words Nicholas Roerich, Shambhala, Inner Mongolia Introduction In the 1920s and 1930s a steady stream of Western visitors made there way to the Far East and crisscrossed Inner Mongolia, before returning home to write about the weird and wonderful sights and smells that they encountered in the ‘East’, or to pontificate for 1 a Western audience on the events unfolding in the region.
    [Show full text]
  • Escape to Shanghai: 1938-1940
    Flight to Shanghai, 1938-1940: The Larger Setting Avraham Altman and Irene Eber Between November 1938 and August 1939, approximately 20,000 Central European refugees, most of them Jews, landed in Shanghai. They had sailed on German, Italian, and Japanese ships and, in the short span of eight months, constituted a massive exodus. What, however, is the background to this phenomenon, and, moreover, why did it rapidly diminish after August 1939?1 In order to answer these questions, we must look at the larger setting within which this process took place—something that, until now, has not been investigated. The Background In 1933, when Hitler came to power, there were around 500,000 Jews in Germany and 185,000 in Austria.2 In contrast to the gradual pressure over several years that had been exerted on the Jews in Germany to leave the country, when Austria came under German rule in March 1938, the Jews were immediately and ruthlessly persecuted. By launching an organized terror campaign against them—confiscating their property, depriving them of all means of livelihood, and incarcerating Jewish men in concentration camps—the Nazis forced the Austrian Jews to 1This paper is part of a larger project on the Jewish communities in modern China under Japanese occupation. The authors wish to thank the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and its Truman Research Institute for their partial support of this research. Irene Eber thanks the J.K. Fairbank Research Center, Harvard University, where additional research was carried out in 1996-1997, and the Andover Newton Theological School where she was Visiting Judson Professor.
    [Show full text]
  • Japanese Aggression in East Asia Introduction the League and Japan
    ODUMUNC 2020 Issue Brief League of Nations Japanese Aggression in East Asia Ian Birdwell Graduate Program in International Studies Old Dominion University Introduction complete control. Later the incident would become known as the start of the Second World The League of Nations emerged out of the ashes War, but in 1937 hope remained that the scale of of the Great War, with the hope the new fighting could be restrained.2 collective security organization could keep a peace among its members, and prevent another Japanese aggression in China has three global conflict. This lofty ambition of keeping implications for world peace and the League of the peace framed all League actions. nations: • First, will the international community be able to act forthrightly to block or reverse Japanese efforts to take control of Chinese territory? • Second, can Japan be persuaded that the costs of aggression outweigh any potential gains, sufficiently that it is dissuaded from further attacks elsewhere in East Asia? • And third, will the League itself remain The Army of Japan prepared to attack Chinese guards on a relevant actor in world affairs, an the Marco Polo Bridge, 7 July 19371 organization with a future place in the world order, or will the world drift into The League was responsible for successful renewed war, and the League drift into negotiations to resolve several territorial irrelevance? disputes. There also were notable failures, most spectacularly the Mukden Incident involving Japan in China in 1931 and the Italian invasion The League and Japan of Abyssinia (Ethiopia today) in 1935. There is a tenuous history between the League In 1937, the Marco Polo (or Lugou) Bridge and Japan in East Asia, which first began in the Incident, a skirmish involving Japanese troops Mukden Incident of 1931.
    [Show full text]
  • The Wang Jing-Wei Regime and the German-Japanese Alliance
    1 2 8 3 4 5 The Wang Jing-wei Regime and the 6 7 German-Japanese Alliance 8 9 10 CHOU WHEI-MING 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1 Introduction 20 2 Establishing Puppet Regimes 1 3 The German-Japanese Negotiation on Manzhouguo 2 4 The Establishment and Function of the Wang Jing-wei Regime 5 Negotiations between Japan and Germany on the Recognition of the 3 Nanjing Regime 4 5 6 1 INTRODUCTION 7 fter the Mukden, or Manchurian, Incident in 1931,1 Japan intensified 8 Aits aggression against China. For a more effective control over the newly 9 acquired territories, Japan started setting up governing boards. As the pow- 30 ers manifested their opposition to the Japanese operations in Manchuria, 1 Japan hired Chinese to form local governments and carry out its policies, 2 so as to avoid international interference. The Japanese Government then 3 pushed for international recognition of these regimes. ‘Man-Zhou Guo’ 4 (hereafter Manzhouguo, also called Manchukuo)2 under Pu Yi3 was the first 5 of the puppet regimes established under such models. On 1 September 36 1939, the predominantly Han Chinese puppet governments of South 37 Chahar Autonomous Government and North Shanxi Autonomous 38 Government were merged with the Mongol Autonomous Government, 39 creating the new Mengjiang United Autonomous Government. The 40 ‘Reformed Government of the Republic of China’ in Nanjing (Nanking) 41 under Wang Jing-wei4 of 1940 was the final one of this type. 42 Manzhouguo was not recognized by the League of Nations or the 43 international community as a political entity due to the fact that it was 44 the outcome of the Japanese invasion, which the League of Nations con- 45 demned.
    [Show full text]
  • Of Manchukuo in Chinese Manchuria in the Early 1930S
    INTERNATIONAL RECOGNITION OF THE JAPANESE “PUPPET STATE” OF MANCHUKUO IN CHINESE MANCHURIA IN THE EARLY 1930S by Emily Smith Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for Departmental Honors in the Department of History Texas Christian University Fort Worth, Texas May 8, 2017 1 INTERNATIONAL RECOGNITION OF THE JAPANESE “PUPPET STATE” OF MANCHUKUO IN CHINESE MANCHURIA IN THE EARLY 1930S Project Approved: Supervising Professor: Peter Worthing, Ph.D. Department of History William Meier, Ph.D. Department of History Mark Dennis, Ph.D. Department of Religion 2 ABSTRACT In September 1931, an explosion occurred on the Southern Manchurian Railroad line near the city of Mukden in the Chinese province of Manchuria. In response to the attack, the Japanese army stationed in Korea at the time moved into Manchuria and annexed the territory from China. This turn of events did concern the international community, but no decisive action was taken during the rest of 1931. The only nation to create any sort of policy regarding the Japanese actions in Manchuria was the United States, which created the Stimson Doctrine in December 1931. The Stimson Doctrine stated that the United States would not recognize new states that were created by aggressive actions, in many ways predicting what would happen in 1932. In early 1932, a new nation called Manchukuo was established in the region with Japan supporting its independence from China. The international community was shocked by these developments and the League of Nations established the Lytton Commission to investigate the Mukden incident and the validity of the new Manchurian State. The League of Nations, however, was slow in its response to the issue of recognizing Manchukuo as an independent nation with it taking over a year for the League to declare that it would not recognize the new state.
    [Show full text]
  • A Plague of Vampires: Problems in the Legacy of Japanese Colonial Medicine and Science
    A Plague of Vampires: Problems in the Legacy of Japanese Colonial Medicine and Science Ruth Rogaski Vanderbilt University work in progress: do not cite without permission of author This paper is an attempt to think through several obstacles I have encountered in my research on the history of the biological sciences in Manchuria. I began with the naïve hope that I could quickly sketch out an overview of the activities of Japanese scientists in this region during the first half of the twentieth century. Instead I encountered a bewildering research terrain. Many documents from this period no longer exist. Many essential archival documents do exist, but are kept inaccessible to researchers. And in China, any discussion about Japanese science is conducted within a matrix of memory, history, and rumor about the nefarious crimes of Japanese scientists. Within this cultural matrix, the Japanese scientist (or physician) is a personification of evil who experimented on humans, murdered Chinese resistance heroes, and created plagues that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians. Such is the power of these memories that no activity in the biological sciences during Japan’s formal fifty-year presence in Manchuria (1895-1945) is left untainted by association with the legacy of germ warfare atrocities perpetrated by the Japanese scientists of Unit 731 during the 1930s and 40s. My work on chronicling the history of biological research institutions in Manchuria has been sidelined while I contemplate the difficulties of interpreting the plague-drenched legacy of Japanese colonial science. The challenge of interpreting stories of evil associated with agents of colonial science and medicine has recently engrossed historians of Africa.
    [Show full text]
  • The Suiyuan Incident
    MURDOCH RESEARCH REPOSITORY http://researchrepository.murdoch.edu.au This is the author's final version of the work, as accepted for publication following peer review but without the publisher's layout or pagination. Boyd, J.G. (2013) Undercover Acolytes: Honganji, the Japanese Army, and Intelligence-Gathering Operations. Journal of Religious History, 37 (2). pp. 185-205. http://researchrepository.murdoch.edu.au/16180 Copyright © The Author and Religious History Association It is posted here for your personal use. No further distribution is permitted. Undercover Acolytes: Honganji, the Japanese Army and Intelligence-Gathering Operations Abstract: In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, as the Japanese Army sought intelligence on the countries neighbouring Japan, the military made use of the Buddhist priesthood as a cover for intelligence gathering. In addition, elements of the Buddhist priesthood, in particular the Kyoto-based Honganji sect, were happy to cooperate with the military in its intelligence gathering operations, either by allowing military officers to disguise themselves as monks or by having Buddhist monks gather military- intelligence for the Japanese Army. This article examines the relationship between the Japanese Army and the Honganji sect following the 1868 Meiji Restoration, the activities of military officers who disguised themselves as Buddhist monks and the intelligence gathering activities of Buddhist monks, hoping to shed more light on the part that Japanese Buddhism played in Japan’s imperial adventures. KEYWORDS Honganji temple, Japanese Army, intelligence-gathering, Ōtani Kōzui, Ōta Kakumin. Introduction The commonly held perception of Buddhism is that it is essentially peaceful, practicing a degree of tolerance for other faiths that is believed to be lacking in Christianity, Islam or Judaism.
    [Show full text]
  • Imperial Japan's Human Experiments Before and During World War Two
    University of Central Florida STARS Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2004-2019 2013 Imperial Japan's Human Experiments Before And During World War Two Alan Vanderbrook University of Central Florida Part of the History Commons Find similar works at: https://stars.library.ucf.edu/etd University of Central Florida Libraries http://library.ucf.edu This Masters Thesis (Open Access) is brought to you for free and open access by STARS. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2004-2019 by an authorized administrator of STARS. For more information, please contact [email protected]. STARS Citation Vanderbrook, Alan, "Imperial Japan's Human Experiments Before And During World War Two" (2013). Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2004-2019. 2589. https://stars.library.ucf.edu/etd/2589 IMPERIAL JAPAN’S HUMAN EXPERIMENTS BEFORE AND DURING WORLD WAR TWO by ALAN JAY VANDERBROOK B.A. University of Central Florida, 2009 A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in the Department of History in the College of Arts and Humanities at the University of Central Florida Orlando, Florida Spring Term 2013 ABSTRACT After Japan occupied Manchuria in 1931, Ishii Shiro created Unit 731 and began testing biological weapons on unwilling human test subjects. The history of Imperial Japan’s human experiments was one in which Ishii and Unit 731 was the principal actor, but Unit 731 operated in a much larger context. The network in which 731 operated consisted of Unit 731 and all its sub-units, nearly every major Japanese university, as well as many people in Japan’s scientific and medical community, military hospitals, military and civilian laboratories, and the Japanese military as a whole.
    [Show full text]